El trío fantástico

How can one not love a Lon Chaney movie. His mastery of roles and his way of putting himself in the most awful physical contortions is historical. The old, "Too many cooks spoil the broth," is at work here. While these people were pulling off small crimes and picking pockets, things were reasonable. As soon as the loose cannon gets in and steals a valuable ruby, killing a man and harming a little girl, things go sour. The pet store front allows for all kinds of great visual delights. A midget playing a baby is also pretty bizarre. And, of course, we have the innocent man, who must be as dense as it possible to be, ignoring that strangest group of felons imaginable. Going around dusting the displays and keeping tabs on a gorilla they just happened to have. The finale is quite interesting and Chaney is superb. Just don't think too much as you watch it.

Lon Chaney known as the man of a thousand faces usually reserved those faces for some grotesque character or monster to which he brought his considerable acting talents to create sympathy. The Unholy Three is an unusual film because he's quite an ordinary man here, but he effects the disguise of an old woman for criminal purposes.

Due to some light fingered activity at a carnival he was employed at Chaney, strong man Victor McLaglen, and midget Harry Earles find themselves unemployed. Chaney who is a ventriloquist decides that the three with their unique physical characteristics and talents can be used to create a nice criminal gang. Chaney in fact goes incognito in the guise of an old woman and Earles plays her grand baby. Personally I think he was way too big to be a toddler, but that's a little dramatic license that director Todd Browning was taking.

Chaney also buys a pet shop and Mae Busch who was a carnival waif goes and lives with them. They also employ Matt Moore as a salesman who is totally clueless about Chaney's and Earles's real identity and what they really do.

Things go wrong and a murder is committed on a job Chaney could not go along on. That sets the rest of the story in motion.

Of course Chaney's guise as an old woman is an astounding success as were all the other characters he created. Yet all the makeup and special effects would be for naught had he not had the acting chops to make it real.

Saying that and saying that because Chaney's virtuosity dominates the film. I thought the ending was truly a cop out. It dulls the impact of Chaney's artistry and it was quite a let down in a film I was ready to rate a notch or two higher.

Still his legion of fans will be well satisfied with this silent version of The Unholy Three remade by MGM for sound, Chaney's one and only sound feature.

In an effort to make more money than they do as traveling carnival show attractions, velvet-voiced ventriloquist Lon Chaney (as Echo), baby-impersonating dwarf Harry Earles (as Tweedledee), and strongman Victor McLaglen (as Hercules) team up to form a gang of jewel thieves who call themselves "The Unholy Three". The crooked trio begins operating out of a bird shop run by Mr. Chaney, posing as sweet "Granny O'Grady", mother of pickpocket and gang moll Mae Busch (as Rosie). The front works like a charm, but Ms. Busch attracts the attention of straight-flying Matt Moore (as Hector), who forms a "love triangle" with Chaney.

Then, an unexpected murder brings further unwelcome advances... from the police.

This was re-made as Chaney's first - and only, unhappily - sound feature, in 1930. Of the many Chaney hits, "The Unholy Three" seemed like the most obvious one to improve with sound; and, Chaney's performance in both is stellar. While the later version has problems, Chaney enhanced his already incredible performance. In this one, frequent collaborator/director Tod Browning is definitely an asset. Also remarkable is Mr. Earle, who hadn't mastered English for the re-make, but seemed fine by "Freaks" (1932); his wicked, cigar-smoking baby is classic.

"The Unholy Three" (1925) was honored as one of its year's best pictures at "Film Daily" (#2), Motion Picture Magazine (#3), and The New York Times (#3) - after winners "The Gold Rush", "The Big Parade", and "The Last Laugh". At Motion Picture, Chaney's individual performance ranked third (after "Best Actor" Emil Jannings and runner-up John Gilbert). The film is perversely appealing - which was then, and is now, a Chaney/Browning hallmark.

******** The Unholy Three (8/16/25) Tod Browning ~ Lon Chaney, Mae Busch, Harry Earles, Matt Moore

The Unholy Three is a magnificent piece of filmmaking. The actors really fit into their roles. The mixture of thriller, comedy and drama is perfect. Tod Browning shows his talents. This film deserves to be shown more. I saw it at the Umea Filmfestival this September with newly written live music that made a great movie even better.

This Lon Chaney vehicle, directed by the great Tod Browning, is the story of three circus performers who begin to thieve jewels. They open a shop that sells parrots as a front. Chaney, a ventriloquist, dresses up as an old woman, one of his cohorts a man posing as the old woman's son, and the third, a midget, as his infant son (one of the major reasons to see this flick is that the same midget, here named Tweedledeedee, also plays Hans, the midget who marries the acrobat Cleopatra in Browning's later masterpiece, Freaks; in this film he actually is seen smoking a giant cigar, which, in Freaks, his fiancee suggested that he shouldn't smoke). One other circus performer, a woman, knows about their plans. Chaney loves her, but she doesn't reciprocate his feelings. The Unholy Three also hire a young dufus to help with the store. In case they get into trouble, they can always pin it on that guy. The store also sports a chimpanzee, humorously filmed so that he seems as big as a gorilla (when it is to walk through a doorway, it walks through a smaller doorway, for instance, than the actors do).

The story of the film is very interesting. It can also can be quite funny, quite suspenseful, and quite pathetic, especially when Chaney is trying to court the young woman. There's at least one masterful sequence, where a policeman almost discovers the jewels the gang has stolen. They hide it in a toy elephant, which amuses the officer very much. The film also uses ventriloquism quite marvelously - I assume that a lot of the audience of this film in 1925 only knew of ventriloquism by second-hand knowledge - they just knew that ventriloquists could throw their voices, not knowing what it would actually look or sound like. In a silent movie then, you could take full advantage of the audience's ignorance. When Madame O'Grady (Chaney's aka) is trying to sell parrots that don't actually talk as talking parrots, she throws her voice to fool the customers. Browning actually shows that the parrots are supposed to be speaking by drawing speech bubbles on the film in front of the birds! The climax also uses ventriloquism wonderfully: Chaney throws his voice to a man who is on the stand, apparently testifying - he moves his lips, but Chaney supplies the voice. Of course, we know that's ridiculous, but only a few in 1925 would have scoffed. 8/10.